


Blue like your eyes, dancing like my heart

by 17 pansies (17pansies)



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Fluff, M/M, SpaceBoos, Spores are pretty, Unadulterated fluff and very little else, these two idiots love each other so much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-22
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2019-03-08 04:15:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13450335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/17pansies/pseuds/17%20pansies
Summary: Hugh can't sleep alone.





	Blue like your eyes, dancing like my heart

**Author's Note:**

> I know I should mention CinnCakes here although whether I should be thanking or cursing her for inflicting these two upon me, I'm not entirely sure...
> 
> Hand wavey fic, Hugh was brought back by the spores & Paul, the Discovery is at some nebulous space station effecting repairs, life is quiet and our boys need some time together because, JFC, it has been BRUTAL so far (and I haven't watched #12 yet because I’m not sure my heart can take it. I’m waiting for the second pint of coffee to kick in before I do so)
> 
> I adore these two idiots SFM.

It was so late it was early. Or so early it was late. Hugh wasn’t exactly sure which, but he was fairly convinced that any circadian rhythms he may once have had, had been well and truly ironed flat. It was kind of hard to have a circadian anything without the diem to make sense of it all. No sun marking the morning, no day to adjust to, no rhythms to follow and yeah, okay, he needed some sleep because he wasn’t even making sense to himself any more. 

He wondered if the mycelium had rhythms. Do fungi follow the sun, he mused as his feet took him towards the spore drive room. Did they sense the light when buried beneath the earth? Was there any chance that he might be able to peel his husband away from his research at anything remotely resembling a reasonable time?

The room was quiet as he stepped through the doors. No one else on shift. No Tilly at the desk with her incessant, amusing questions. No other scientists monitoring and cataloguing and observing.

Just one man, staring fixedly at a 3D display as his hands flickered between readouts and controls.

Hugh stood and watched. This quiet, focussed competence was something that still drew him to Paul, continued to captivate him even after years together. Paul was oblivious to everything except his precious mycelium and the scrolling stream of numbers and equations which writhed around the helixes in the air before him. 

Paul’s sleeves were rolled up, exposing his pale toned forearms and the odd flash of silver from the interfaces. There was something almost preternaturally quick about the way his fingers moved through the data, picking and choosing and flicking away the things he did not want or did not fit.

In spite of himself, Hugh began to relax. He’d arrived on edge, gearing up to do battle and drag Paul away but there was something slightly soporific in the air. It might have been something to do with the tiny sparkling spores which drifted through the open door of the transparent aluminum containment unit, eddying around on invisible currents and dancing through the low light. It was like watching a flock of birds or a shoal of fish from a great distance, a flick and twist and they were off in another direction, forever moving and curling around, never settling, always drifting, always beautiful…

“Captivating, isn’t it?”

Hugh blinked, dragging his attention back to Paul. Who was leaning on the now-dim workstation, smiling at him.

“I…” The words wouldn’t come, but they didn’t have to. Paul’s blue eyes flickered from dark to milk and back again, and Hugh knew he saw everything. “Very.”

“I don’t know why I tried so hard to contain them,” Paul said, stepping around the desk. “We kept them in pods and units and thought that by constraining them, we were channeling their power. Turns out,” he added with a wry little smile. “That by setting them free, we increased their power exponentially.” He lifted a hand and curved it through the air in a sinuous wave. 

The sparkling spore gathered around his fingers, leaving lazily curling trails in the air. It reminded Hugh of watching the conductor at the last opera they’d been to; elegant gestures tethering the players to the rhythm and the music made itself in the air around them. 

Paul’s spores danced between his fingers and, with a single flick, he sent a glittering cascade spiralling around Hugh.

Hugh couldn’t feel them, of course he couldn’t because they were infinitesimal, but he shivered anyway. It wasn’t a bad shiver, mind. He felt the fine hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stand on end, and his breath caught as Paul took a step closer.

“You’re beautiful,” Paul said, cupping Hugh’s face with a gentle hand. “They like you, you know.”

Everything was sparkling around the edges of Hugh’s vision, but he couldn’t pull his eyes away from Paul’s. Bright blue held warm brown and Hugh leaned into the warmth of Paul’s palm.

“I like you,” Hugh pointed out. 

“Which is why you’re here, no doubt, to drag me away back to the real world for a while.” 

“No.” Hugh’s honesty seemed to stop Paul’s next wry observation. “I’m here to drag you away to our quarters for some sleep.”

“Sleep is over rated.”

“For you, maybe.” Hugh let his eyes close and tipped his head enough to press a kiss to Paul’s palm. “But I don’t sleep well these days unless you’re right next to me.”  
It was selfish, he knew that. But even as the words (which he’d practised and practised and practised saying because whilst he could give any orders required for the well being of others on board, he always struggled if it was something for himself) registered, he felt the whirl of emotion in the spores which ebbed and flowed and gathered around the both of them.

“Hugh…”

Hugh made himself look, even though he knew he’d see guilt writ large on his husband’s face. It wasn’t what he’d wanted to do, but he needed… something.

“Just, a few hours,” he asked, and though it sounded a little too much like begging for his own comfort, now he’d managed to come this far, he had to see it through. “You can come back at the start of the next alpha shift, that’s nearly five hours, and we have no plans to jump anywhere that I’m aware of, not whilst we’re still effecting repairs to the starboard cargo bay doors. But…”

“Shh.” Paul’s finger against Hugh’s lips gently silenced him. “You need me.” It was a pleased little smile, almost surprised, and Hugh couldn’t figure out why Paul would be surprised that he was still needed. “So I’m here. For you.”

Hugh couldn’t help the wave of relief which washed over him, and Paul’s arms came up to gather him close as he sagged against him. 

“Thank you,” he murmured, burying his face into Paul’s neck. “I’ve missed you so much as of late.”

“I’ve been a terrible husband.” Paul pressed a kiss to Hugh’s temple, and Hugh could have sworn he felt it tingle. “I need to fix that.”

With a wave of his hand, the spores gathered around from the furthest corners of the room. They came together in a gently whirling mass that coiled in tighter and tighter around them, until Hugh felt like he was in the middle of a sparkling vortex, the eerie stillness of nothing moving even as the spores gathered pace. 

Then with a flick, they vanished.

“What? Where did they go?” Hugh glanced around the pristine room, perplexed.

“Into the garden.” Paul pointed at the door. “They’ll be back when I return tomorrow.”

“So you’ll come to bed?”

“Oh, most definitely.” The smile Paul gave him was a little more than coy, and in spite of his exhaustion, Hugh felt a curl of warmth in his belly. “And as I’m technically not on shift until after lunch either…” 

“I love you,” Hugh told him.

“I know.” Paul leaned forward and kissed him softly. “I love you just as much. Maybe more. But then my mind is bigger than yours now.”

“Nice to see your modesty remains unchanged.”


End file.
